3 Longest Minutes in Hubermann History

In this section of the book the NSDAP, the Nazi Party, was inspecting each and every house in order to see if its basement was a good enough candidate to become a bomb shelter. Liesel was playing soccer outside when she noticed The Party headed down Himmel Street. Panic generated in Liesel in an awful way. She came up with a plan to collide with another player on the street in order to scrape her leg. She managed to get inside her home inconspicuously to warn her papa about the incoming Nazis.

Rosa and Hans tried to come up with ideas to hide the Jew in the basement, but alas they were too late when seven knocks banged on their door.

“’Open up!’

Their heartbeats fought each others, a mess of rhythm. Liesel tried to eat hers down. The taste of heart was not cheerful.

Rosa whispered, ‘Jesus, Mary-’

On this day, it was Papa who rose to the occasion. He rushed to the basement door and threw a warning down the steps. When he returned, he spoke fast and fluent. ‘Look, there is no time for tricks. We could distract him a hundred different ways, but there is one solution.’ He eyed the door and summed up. ‘Nothing.” (Zusak, 342-343)

The Nazis came inside, and chatted with Liesel for a while asking about her recent knee injury. Then they headed to the basement door.

“********The Longest Three Minutes in Hubermann History*************

Papa sat at the table. Rosa prayed in the corner, mouthing the words. Liesel was cooked: her knee, her chest, and the muscles in her arms. I doubt any of them had the audacity to consider what they’d do if the basement was appointed as a shelter. They had to survive the inspection first.”
(Zusak, 344)

Hans Hubermann came up with a new plan. Make everyone look innocent, instead of sitting there with worried looks on their faces. It worked; the party men left and everything was almost right with the world. The Hubermanns and Liesel went down the steps to check on Max, he was curled up holding a pair of scissors like his life depended on them. Papa lit a cigarette. Rosa took the scissors. Everyone was relieved that their home was not chosen as a bomb shelter. Things returned to normal (as normal as things could be while hiding a Jew in Nazi Germany).

The scariest time of my life (lately) was when Tyson and I were watching a movie. A terrifying clown came on the screen when Tyson held me down to look at it. I pushed him off me and ran to my room to hide and cry. I went into a panic attack and everything. It was horrible, but not nearly as horrible as what the Hubermanns and Liesel went through that day.

Works Cited

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.